By Donald Iorchir
Kuje area council Chairman, Abdullahi D. Galadima, has bemoaned the loss of essential development funds to mounting court cases and judgements delivered in favour of several litigants, especially contractors.
The chairman disclosed that more than N71 million was directly removed from the Council’s bank accounts as a result of court orders, lamenting that “these deductions have made it impossible for the Council to pay salaries regularly or meet its promise of providing the dividends of democracy to the people.”
Galadima, who stated this to mark the one-year anniversary of the All Progressive Congress (APC) administration in Kuje, disclosed that the last 12 months had been “very hectic for the leadership of the area council as contractors owed huge sums of money got four garnishee orders from different courts in the FCT which were enforced through direct deductions from the bank accounts of the Council.”
“The amounts deducted included N25 million paid to M/S Emadike, N46 million paid to SM Nigeria Limited and N11 million that was collected by Global Nigeria Limited for contracted completed by the immediate past administrations.
“The amount taken by court orders crippled the running of the area council as salaries could not be paid nor democratic dividends provided to our teeming electorate,” he said.
He also disclosed that the problems of ghost workers have been drastically reduced and this has forced down the monthly wage bill to N86. 90 million while the N173. 80 million three months salary arrears owed workers has not been paid due to poor allocation from the Federation Account.
“These security challenges come with a lot of financial burdens and have continued to increase, especially when we consider the rapid development of Kuje town, which is gradually becoming an urban settlement.”
